“What happened?!” Riella asked as she barged into the bridge.
“We detected a powerful monster thirty-five kilometels to the northwest! It’s on the surface!” the spotter immediately replied.
They had someone on spotter duty day and night, constantly watching for potential threats, so they were able to spot this one while it was still on the horizon.
“Yeah, it’s...probably on the surface. Ya couldn’t see somethin’ thirty-five kilometels away if it was in the water, after all.”
In Infinite Dendrogram’s naval combat, thirty-five kilometels wasn’t a particularly great distance. There were creatures and ships that could move close to the speed of sound, after all. If two such opponents encountered each other at this distance, it would take barely two minutes for them to clash.
Still, scouting devices and spotting magic had limited effective range, and that made the naval battles truly terrifying. With underwater threats being especially hard to detect, it wasn’t uncommon for ambushes from below to sink an unsuspecting ship in an instant. The UBM the Adventure II had encountered earlier that day was a great example of such terrors.
“And? Is it Abyss Shellder?”
“The signal says that it’s above High-Dragon tier, and a dragon-type monster.” Hearing that made Riella click her tongue. If it was a dragon, then it couldn’t be her mark.
However...
“We have an update! Above High-Dragon in strength, chimera type...and we’ve detected signs of combat. There are two of them! Two High-Dragon tier monsters are fighting about thirty-five kilometels away!”
“Full speed ahead!” Riella blurted out that order, and the helmsman immediately obeyed.
If it was a chimera, it could be her target, and the fact that it was fighting a dragon was important too. Abyss Shellder wasn’t targeting just ships—it was attacking anything in the South Sea, other monsters included. This made it likely that this chimera battling the dragon could be Abyss Shellder itself.
Thus, the Adventure II was now heading northwest.
Crossing the space that moments ago had marked the horizon, they soon drew close enough to see the battle.
“Look at ’em go!” On the black sea, illuminated only by moonlight, there were two silhouettes engaged in combat. Both of them were long, casting shadows like serpentine dragons weaving through the clouds.
“The dragon’s probably some kinda serpent... And the chimera...?”
From their silhouettes, Riella assumed that the dragon-type monster was a seadragon, but the other’s build was very similar. The only real difference was that it had more girth than the dragon.
“One of them matches the data we have on Frost High Serpents. But we have no data on the other!”
“We have yet to confirm the name either! It’s too dark and too far!” The battle between the two was intense, churning the waters all around them. They were quite fast as well, so it was difficult to see the names above them.
Riella watched the battle. The shape alone made it clear that the chimera wasn’t the Abyss Shellder she was after—but since it was a chimera, it might have some relevance to it.
There was no doubt that it was one of the many Mocks that had appeared in Abyss Shellder’s wake. Considering that, it didn’t seem like a bad idea to defeat it before engaging Abyss Shellder itself.
“Ready the artillery,” she said. “We’ll attack if the chimera wins, or if they both drop their fight and come at us instead. Gather as much data as you can until then.”
“What if the serpent wins?” Asam asked.
“If it doesn’t attack us, we’ll just ignore it and get back on our course.”
Asam nodded in response.
While Riella was driven by the strong desire for revenge, she had no trouble maintaining composure in combat. The reason she hadn’t launched a preliminary attack was to avoid the serpent and the chimera both attacking her ship simultaneously if she could help it.
And thus, she chose to wait until the battle was concluded and the winner was weakened.
The crew held their breath and watched as the two monstrosities fought.
✦ ✦ ✦
The Frost High Serpent fighting the chimera wasn’t originally from this part of the sea.
It had migrated here after its habitat had been disrupted and the amount of available prey had decreased.
It was a High-Dragon—the apex of any ecosystem that lacked the rare Dragon Kings or High-End-Dragons. This gave it more than enough power to thrive no matter where it went.
However, as soon as it had arrived in this part of the sea, it had been attacked by this chimera. The beast possessed a long, serpentine body just like its own while also sporting a thick shell like the ones found on Armored Serpents and Mail Serpents.
The chimera enraged the Frost High Serpent, perhaps because of its similar shape, causing the dragon to turn around and fight. It used its fangs and body to shatter the chimera’s shell, but its HP was high, and it seemed like they had reached a stalemate.
Thus, the Frost High Serpent used the ace up its sleeve.
“H Y O O O O O O O...” Opening its maw wide, it inhaled the air around it.
Then, after closing its mouth for a moment...
“S H O O O O O O O!!!”
...it opened it again, unleashing the power collected within.
This was the breath attack of a High-Dragon—a burst of freezing power that matched even the ultimate skill of the high-rank ice magic job, Cryomancer.
However, when released by a creature of such immense size, it had a scale far greater than that.
The attack instantly froze the chimera, as well as several hundred metels of water around it. Dragons were pillars of sheer power—terrifying beings that common tians could only slay in full parties of experienced high-rank jobs.
High-Dragons were even more powerful than ordinary Dragons. Even lesser UBMs could lose against an aquatic High-Dragon fighting in the sea.
The chimera couldn’t even scream before the frost gathered around and immobilized it.
Frozen in ice that reflected the moonlight, the chimera had become nothing more than a statue, albeit one which could turn many heads.